I know I said I’d write another post about Mapping Petersburg, but I’m still thinking about that, so in the mean time, another top ten. But this time it is not the works, but the writers themselves, and specifically their facial adornments, that interest me. Beards, as Elif Batuman has affirmed, are hugely important to […]

1856 saw the first volumes of Russkii vestnik appear, and as Russian culture began to emerge from the stagnation that characterized the final years of Nicholas I’s rule, the journal began with a strong set of contributors, many of whom then continued to appear in the journal for many years. Literary works include Ostrovsky’s play […]

The 1857 volumes feature poetry by the usual suspects, Maikov, Fet, Tiutchev, and A. K. Tolstoy, all of whom obviously formed an early and lasting attachment to the journal. Prose is represented in works by Pechersky, Petrichenko and Evgeniia Tur, as well as a number of stories by Shchedrin. Tur also contributes an essay on […]